The Distinguished Military Career and Controversies of General Roberto Vannacci

High-level military training, extensive field experience, academic studies and post-graduate degrees, fluency in many languages, and familiarity with major headquarters. General Roberto Vannacci, a 55-year-old from La Spezia, has been serving in the army since he was 18. Having earned his commando badge, he participated from a young age in missions to 'neutralize' terrorists in Somalia and to rescue civilians during the genocide in Rwanda. Progressively, he added command roles to his operational duties. Thus, in his long career, which also includes experiences in Libya, Yemen, former Yugoslavia, and Iraq, before the Military Geographic Institute of Florence, of which he has been the commander for just two months, he can boast of having led the Task Force 45 during the war in Afghanistan and the Folgore Paratrooper Brigade. In Iraq, General Vannacci was sent as the commander of the entire Italian contingent to personally train local militias to fight on the ground against ISIS terrorists and to direct counter-insurgency activities. In this experience, the military officer distinguished himself with an initiative that was unwelcome to the highest ranks of the Armed Forces, leading to the submission of two reports on the lack of protection for the frontline contingent against the risks posed by depleted uranium. Decorated fifteen times (including by the United States of America - with the Bronze Star Medal and the Legion of Merit - for his activities in Afghanistan and Iraq), General Vannacci holds three master's degrees, in strategic, military, and international diplomatic studies, and is fluent in Italian, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Romanian. Regarding the Russian language, he was still taking his first steps when, in 2022, he was expelled from Moscow along with the entire Italian diplomatic contingent, of which he was the Defense Attaché, immediately after the attack on Ukraine and the breakdown of relations between Russia and Italy. On February 26, 2024, following various complaints filed against him by some associations, the Rome Prosecutor's Office opened an investigation for incitement to racial hatred against Vannacci due to the book 'The World Upside Down'. A few days later, he was suspended from employment for 11 months following the disciplinary proceedings initiated by the Ministry of Defense for the publication of the book, which would have caused a 'breach of the principle of neutrality/impartiality of the Armed Force, compromising the prestige and reputation of the Administration of belonging and generating possible emulative effects that are disruptive and divisive within the military community.'